


Just Another Day In The Gardens

by SylvanAuctor



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie, Provenance - Ann Leckie
Genre: Post-Canon, dæmon AU, r2sid 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 11:42:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14354745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanAuctor/pseuds/SylvanAuctor
Summary: After the Conclave, everything is right in the Republic of Two Systems. Except maybe the health of the Garden lake.





	Just Another Day In The Gardens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dontneedaclassroom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontneedaclassroom/gifts).



“I didn’t think Medic made house calls,” Seivarden murmured when she awoke, far less sore and far more lucid than she expected to. She had heartily celebrated the result of the Conclave for the second time last night, with  _ Sphene  _ of all people. A whole decade of it, in one of Station’s Xhai-style baths. Afterward, Breq had tucked her into bed, curled around her, and bade her to sleep. “...Breq?”

Mockingbird song came from the other room of the over-Concourse suite that all of House Vendaai now shared. Seivarden rolled out of bed and followed the sound into the kitchen, followed by her sleek gray borzoi dæmon. Breq was there, making tea, harmonizing in Delsig with her dæmon, who sat among the white lilies blooming in the windowsill.

“Good morning, Seivarden,” Breq said, and gave her a little smile. She handed Seivarden a rose glass bowl of black breakfast tea.

“Morning, Breq,” Seivarden said, and smiled back. “Did Medic come by?”

“No. Kuenr came by to drop off tea from the Valskaayan cooperative, and happened to want to fix you up.” She showed Seivarden the packet of tea, bearing an image of a stained-glass saint.

Seivarden drank deeply. The tea was strong and perfectly warm, and she realized that Breq had found out exactly how she liked it. “Tell Citizen Queter she should be proud.”

“Of course,” Breq said, and twitched her fingers to it.

They sat in comfortable chairs overlooking the concourse, Seivarden’s borzoi curled at her feet. Eventually, Tisarwat entered, dæmon padding along behind. Seivarden was happy to see it was a black cat today, and not the raven or crow that meant one Anaander or the other was troubling her. Seivarden still couldn’t believe that Anaander had kept that secret for so long, that no one had whispered the fact that she was appearing with two different birds. She pushed that thought away. Anaander was broken, and on the other side of a growing number of provinces that were, in Treaty terms, entirely AI, and increasingly visited by the Geck and Rrrrrr. The Two Systems could afford to rest and look inward.

“I thought we’d go down to the Gardens, after a while?” said Tisarwat to no one in particular.

“Sounds good,” Seivarden said.

 

The concourse was full of the usual noonday bustle, Republic Citizens followed by every kind of dæmon, birds above, snakes wrapped around necks, wolves and big cats following along behind. Administrator Celar sat in a tea shop with her immense crocodile sleeping peacefully under her seat, and a decade of  _ Sphene  _ passed by with its orderly spiral of identical parakeets.

 

The Gardens were peaceful, and mostly empty except for Sirix and Basnaaid, picking the dead leaves out of the lilies, kneeling by the side of the water with some sort of sensor.

“Everything alright?” Breq asked, coming up beside her. Mockingbird and turtledove twittered brightly at each other.

“pH in the lake seems to be off, Fleet Captain,” said Basnaaid, not standing or looking up. “For the life of me I can’t figure out what’s wrong, Station and Piat neither. Fish are getting sick.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Breq said.

“Fleet Captain, this is hardly one of your hydroponics banks for skel. The fish and the flowers and kids throwing in who knows how much uneaten food per day, it’s complicated.”

“I know,” Breq said.

“What are you thinking?” Tisarwat asked.

“I met someone at the Conclave who may be able to help. If this can wait until after today and tomorrow’s conference with the outstation administrators, I can certainly check on her.”

“I’d prefer not to wait that long,” Basnaaid said.

“Let me,” Seivarden offered.

Breq nodded. “Honored Captain Tic Uisine, of Tyr Siilas.”

 

Seivarden messaged Station,  _ Is Captain Uisine of Tyr Siilas still docked? If she is, can you invite her for tea on the concourse? If it doesn’t slow her down. _

_ Honored Captain Tic Uisine is still docked. She would prefer to invite you for serbat on board her ship, if it is all the same to you. _

Seivarden wondered why this might be, but messaged back,  _ Alright. When about? _

_ Captain Uisine is free today. Stop by at your leisure.  _ Station sent Seivarden the directions to the dock where Captain Uisine’s ship was, and Seivarden followed them. A lean person in a lungi and extruded blanket appeared in the door when it opened. She was still pulling on gloves. On her shoulder perched the biggest and brightest blood-red bearded eagle Seivarden has ever seen.

“Captain Uisine,” Seivarden said with a smile, and the offer of a bottle of the Athoeki sorghum liquor. “Thank you for seeing me.”

Garal waited for Station’s translation, and said in Bantia, “Garal Ket, actually. But please, come in, Tic is happy to see the Fleet Captain’s friends. She is well?” She took the bottle.

“Very well, thank you.”

They went in to where Tic sat at his small table in his cramped ship, and Seivarden saw why he preferred not to leave. An electric eel dæmon floated in a large tank beside him; leaving the ship would invariably mean being far from it, which was a painful proposal at the best of times.

“What can I do for the friend of the Fleet Captain?” Tic asked, in passable Radchaai. “Serbat?”

Seivarden accepted a hot cup of something that was not tea, but was not particularly bad either. The request made a lot more sense now, in context. “Fleet Captain begs your considerable indulgence on the behalf of the Department of Horticulture that you offer some advice. The pH of our garden lake is endangering the fish. Of course, if you find it uncomfortable to leave you ship--”

“No, no. Now that I know this isn’t just a social call, of course I can come down.” She reached into a cabinet and retrieved a head-sized glass bowl, which she upended into the eel tank. Once it had swum in, a gelatinous, spidery mech heaved it out and carried it behind Tic as she left the ship.

“This is greatly appreciated, Honored,” Breq said once they all stood on the lakeshore.

“This is still very disturbing, Citizen,” Tic said, motioning to the vast undivided surface of the Garden dome.

“Believe me, I know,” Breq said.

“At least you do. Let’s get to it, then.” The spider mech fished the eel out of its bowl and dropped it into the lake. Tic made a shocked face for a moment, then quickly cleared it. She closed her eyes, seeing through the dæmon’s as it perused the lakebed.

“Does Station have sensors down here?” Tic asked. “Basic visuals.”

“Not visuals,” Basnaaid said. “At the bottom of a pool?”

“Might have caught the siphon somebody poked in the bottom of the lake,” Tic said. Her dæmon returned to the surface, and the mech plopped it back in its bowl.

“From the Undergarden,” Basnaaid said.

 

When Breq and Seivarden went down to investigate, they knocked on a door that opened with a wave of the scent of death. Seivarden nearly threw up, and when she recovered, she entered to find Translator Dlique, and beside her, the towering bloom of a corpse flower. It was attached with rubber piping to a hole in the ceiling.

“Translator,” Breq asked. “What is that?”

Dlique cocked her head, giving Breq that disappointed ‘you were doing so well but now you’ve really dropped the thread’ look. “It’s my dæmon.”

“Well it’s messing with the pH in the Garden. And how did you get it down here?”

“It’s not always so big. Or so… Hmm. I don’t think you have that concept.”

“We can water it somewhere else. In your actual quarters, perhaps? Whose are these?”

“ _ Sphene’s.  _ And I got  _ bored  _ of my quarters, Fleet Captain.”

“That isn’t Horticulturist Basnaaid’s problem.”

“Hmm. I suppose you’re right.” Dlique tied off the pipes, pulled them out of the base of the plant, picked it up, carried it down the hall, to the chagrin of all who could smell it, and shoved it into a ship that didn’t even seem to have the vertical space to keep the giant bloom.

“Aliens are weird,” Seivarden said.

The pH of the lake returned to normal in the next days.


End file.
